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Each time that you use the Copy and Paste commands in Microsoft Excel, it is not just the cell data that is copied; the formatting, style and number formats are also copied. The Paste Special command allows you to be selective about what you are pasting. The Paste Special command can be used to import elements from other programs into Excel using Windows Object Linking and Embedding. When doing so, the option “Paste Link” can be used to create a link to the original data rather than pasting in a copy of it.

A good many of the worksheets that are created Excel contain headings in the top row of the sheet. Normally, whenever we scroll down the sheet, any headings at the top will disappear. Similarly, if one scrolls to the right, any headings on the left will disappear. Excel’s Freeze Panes command, which is located in the View Tab of the Excel Ribbon, allows you to freeze our headings so that, as we scroll the sheet, headings remain in view.

The alignment section of the Home Tab of the Excel ribbon contains a number of options relating to the way in which your data is position within the cell. Perhaps the most familiar and the most frequently used buttons in this section are the three relating to the horizontal position your data: left, centre and right. However you’ll notice that when you click in the cells of an unformatted worksheet, none of these three icons is highlighted, which indicates that none of them is the default. The reason for this is that Excel treats data differently depending on the data type.

There are two ways in which computer graphics can be generated on a computer: as vectors or as bitmaps. Bitmapped images consist of a series of tiny squares called pixels, while vector graphics are essentially instructions to a computer to create a series of geometrical shapes each with a given set of attributes. Bitmaps are typical continuous tone images such as photographs. Vectors are typical flat artwork designs such as logos, charts, symbols and illustrations.

There are basically two ways in which a graphic can be inserted into an InDesign layout. Firstly, it can be independent of all other items on the page and, secondly, it can be embedded, or anchored, within a block of text. The first approach perhaps offers the greatest degree of flexibility in terms of how the graphic may be integrated with other elements. The main benefit offered by the anchored approach is that the graphic can then be linked to a given point within the flow of text.

Before you can create a chart in Microsoft Excel, you need to highlight the data that you want to plot. Your selection should also include any relevant headings. Excel allows you to create charts on chart sheets independent of the worksheet containing the data or to embed the chart on the worksheet alongside the data.

In this tutorial will look at creating and customising a column chart. The first step is to select the data that we want to plot, taking care to include any column and row headings. Row headings will be used as the names of the chart series and will be displayed in the legend. Column headings will be used as category labels. If the selection includes two sets of column headings, Excel will automatically recognize this and create two sets of headings on the category axis for us.

Before you can manipulate a chart any way, you need to select the chart. To select an embedded chart, just click once on its border. When a chart is highlighted, Excel does two things: it displays the data on which the chart is based and it displays the Chart Tools. Chart Tools consist of the Design, Layout and Format context sensitive tabs.

This article describes two features which are very useful when printing worksheets in Microsoft Excel: Set Print Area and Print Titles.

As we move away from the days when the printed version of a document was always seen as the definitive one, Adobe’s PDF format becomes more and more important. InDesign itself allows you to create PDF documents; you don’t need a separate copy of Acrobat for this purpose. In addition to creating the PDF, InDesign allows you to make it interactive, thus enhancing the user experience of anyone who browses it. To ensure that these various commands are included in the PDF, you must activate the “Interactive Elements” option in the Export PDF dialog box.